


... But Better

by msred



Series: Lessons [6]
Category: Actor RPF, American (US) Actor RPF, Marvel Cinematic Universe RPF, Real Person Fiction
Genre: 2020 US Presidential Election, Angst with a Happy Ending, Comfort/Angst, Established Relationship, F/M, Hope, Long-Distance Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:08:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27450988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/msred/pseuds/msred
Summary: It's still not great. But it's a lot better.*Sequel to "Not Okay"***NOT part of "Starting Over"**
Relationships: Chris Evans (Actor) & Original Female Character(s), Chris Evans (Actor)/Original Female Character(s)
Series: Lessons [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2019040
Comments: 14
Kudos: 23





	... But Better

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Not Okay](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27416032) by [msred](https://archiveofourown.org/users/msred/pseuds/msred). 



> After the overwhelming flood of emotions I experienced on Saturday, there was no way I couldn't follow up on "Not Okay."

She’d cried again when the Vice President-elect took the stage, her white suit and pearls both symbolic and beautiful against her brown skin. She’d gotten chills at the pure joy she'd shown, not, she believed, on her own behalf or because of her own accomplishment, but because she knew what the moment meant for so many others. She’d continued to choke up as the President-elect spoke, echoing his former boss’s promise to be a president not for red states or blue states but for the United States, promising to work to bring the country together rather than further dividing it, acknowledging the immense, complex problems facing the country, including both a deadly global pandemic and centuries of systemic racism. And as he’d concluded, as his accomplished wife and the rest of his and his running mate’s families flooded the stage, she thought to herself, _And he did it all using only words of positivity, and without insulting anyone, or calling anyone names._

Chris leans over as the camera pans out to capture the excitement and exuberance not only on the stage but in the crowd surrounding it and presses his nose softly to her temple, his forehead resting on her hair. “Are you still not okay?” he asks.

She hums and lets herself be pulled against him when he slides his arm off the back of the couch to wrap around her shoulders and pull her a little closer. “I’m still not great,” she admits, tracing circles over his jeans with her middle finger, “but I am a lot better.”

“Talk it out,” he says, sitting up straight and angling his body a little more toward hers.

“I mean, I’m thrilled that it’s more or less settled, that we get a new president and he’ll no longer be in charge. But,” she sighs and shakes her head, “I’m still really disheartened at how many people voted for him, after everything.” 

“Look at that,” Chris instructs, jutting his chin toward the television. She does, and for a couple minutes they just watch the future president, the future vice president, and their families, all standing on a stage in the cold Delaware night, looking up in awe, in joy, at the fireworks bursting over their heads. “You know what that means?”

She nods. “It means he won.”

“Oh come on, sweetheart,” Chris taunts, curling his hand around her shoulder to shake her lightly, “it means so much more than that.” She just looks at him, her look saying something along the lines of _Alright smartass, just tell me already, if you know so much,_ but without any heat _._ “Yes, 71 million people voted to keep Biff in office, and that _sucks_ .” She lifts her eyebrows and tilts her head. So far, she’s not seeing what’s supposed to make her feel better. “Without a doubt, many of them are terrible, terrible humans.” She scoffs, because _really_ ? He’s generally much better at pep talks than this. “But! Many of them aren’t, even though that distinction may be hard to see right now. Many of them are just scared, uninformed, confused, and that makes them vulnerable, susceptible to being misled, even taken advantage of. And now, very soon, that walking, talking spray tan will lose his access to the bully pulpit. He’ll no longer be given free reign to spew hate and vitriol and lies and have it all covered by our news media. And _then_ ,” he reaches across her, cupping her jaw in his hand and running his thumb over her cheek, “then maybe we can get some of those people back. Maybe we can help them see that the things, the _people_ , he told them to be afraid of aren’t the threat he said they were. I’m not saying they’ll all become Democrats. But I don’t necessarily think that’s the goal. I think we just need people to see him for who he is, a snake oil salesman who cares about no one but himself, and to see _other_ people for who _they_ are, to see that overall, we all have more in common than not. There will still be party divides, and we will still disagree with most of the things the other side tries to do, but hopefully we’ll be able to do it without the nastiness, the promoting of hate, the projecting of some people as inherently less than others..”

She turns her face toward his hand, kissing his palm before bringing her own hand up to his wrist to pull his hand down to her lap and link their fingers together. “It does sound good, in theory.”

“Okay,” he heaves out on a sigh, “I saw a thing on Twitter,” she levels him with a look and he rolls his eyes. “Yeah yeah, I’ve been on Twitter. Big surprise. Anyway, I saw a thing that said that this doesn’t automatically fix things, doesn’t even mean it’s going to be easy, because it’s not, but that if Biff had been reelected, everything would have been infinitely harder.” He takes the hand still on her shoulder and lifts it to smooth over her hair, letting it rest on the back of her neck. “I know it’s hard for you to understand why so many people don’t have hearts like yours. And sweet girl,” he presses his forehead to hers as he goes on, “if more of the world had a heart like yours, it would be a much, much better place. Hell, we’d never have ended up in this position to begin with.” He pulls back, kissing her nose along the way. “But don’t let that disappointment steal away the joy, the hopefulness of this moment.”

He smiles at her a little, hopefully, and she practically surges forward to kiss him. He lets out a little _oomph_ when her lips crash onto his, but it doesn’t stop him from kissing back, from pulling his hand from hers to wrap around her waist and pull her a little closer. The kiss tapers off, ending in a few soft, quick pecks against his lips and even one to his cheek and she says, holding his face in her hands. “Thank you. That helped. _That_ ” she nods toward the television and the celebration that hasn’t slowed one bit, the crowd diverse in age, gender, race, but united in their joy, their pride, their sheer relief, “helps. Being here with you,” she kisses him again, “helps.”

“God,” he huffs out some sort of sigh-laugh hybrid, “I’m so fuckin’ glad you’re still here. I think if I’d ended up having to put you on a plane this morning I’d’ve just gone with you.”

“Yeah, well,” she resituates herself on the couch, scooting her butt forward a bit then plopping her upper body over onto him, the back of her shoulder resting at about the center of his chest and her hand coming down to his lap and drawing patterns over his thigh so high and inside that it’s damn near not his thigh anymore. (Her mental and emotional states have been so bad the past few days that her sex drive has been nonexistent. He hasn’t commented on it and hasn’t tried anything, even though she knows he has to be disappointed, especially since up until the previous afternoon, they’d been working under the assumption that she was leaving that morning. She’s finding, though, that as her capacity for hope and joy are returning, so is her libido, and she’s suddenly aware of just how long - about 100 hours and counting - they’ve been sharing a house and a bed without either of them getting anything out of it, physically speaking.) “Like I told her when I called yesterday afternoon,” she goes on, referencing her principal, “it was either she give me permission to teach from here for another week, or I was going to use up some of the many sick days I have at my disposal. And as far as I’m concerned, the whole thing would be totally legit. You have absolutely been essential to my mental health the past few days, and leaving you would have been beyond detrimental to me."

He leans down to kiss the top of her head. “Hey, you don’t have to convince me. I wanted it as much as you did.”

They watch the television without speaking for a few minutes longer, until the view switches back over to the CNN anchor desk and Chris Cuomo and Don Lemon start to analyze the speeches. It’s not that she doesn’t appreciate and respect Cuomo, she does. They both do. But they seem to come to an unspoken agreement that they’d rather walk away with the speeches in their brains rather than have someone else break them down for them. Chris flips through the channels just for a minute, making it through maybe five, then turns the tv off altogether and tosses the remote aside.

“Hey,” he kisses her head again, “wanna go for a walk?”

She twists around as much as she can and cranes to look up at him and she can’t help but smile at the way he looks back at her. She never can, really. She nods and his grin grows a little before he hops up, bracing her a little with one arm so she doesn’t topple over at the loss of support. He extends a hand to help her up and calls for Dodger as she gets to her feet, and together the three of them head out into the crisp November night under a soft, fluffy mound of coats and scarves.

She stands by her assessment that a lot of things still aren’t great. And she agrees with what he’d repeated from Twitter, that things are still not going to be easy. But, she finally allows herself to truly believe, to feel in her heart and soul, they are much, much better.

**Author's Note:**

> As I said with the first piece, while there are similarities, this is not the same character as the Narrator in "Starting Over." "Not Okay" was meant to be a random one-off just to try to help fill the deep need I'd had in my soul for several days, and this is a follow-up to that. But before I'd even finished the first one I was thinking about other events in this world, mainly the things that got them to this point. So, with that being said, there MAY eventually be more stories within this world. We shall see.


End file.
